Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 6063617" data-attributes="member: 6668292">The second part of the quote does happen in my game, but it's usually after the session or in a lull after the situation is over, and that's not the kind of emotion I'm talking about. I think you might grasp the general thing I go for, though, as you did mention "and so isn't just the emotional response to vicariously experiencing the PCs' situations", which is basically what I go for.I try to get my players to step into the shoes of their character, and then I want them immersed enough that they can feel the emotions that the character should be feeling (obviously to a lesser, safer degree). I love the emotional reaction I can get at times. The feelings of helplessness, sadness, pity, pure joy, happiness, triumph. I can bring them all out with my group, and it's very fulfilling. When speaking for an NPC, and having my voice break at just the right time, and watching them honestly react to the emotion I'm simulating... it's addicting.But, it's also productive, in my view, as a person. And I know people might disagree with that, but one of my very good friends (and a player in my games) has problems feeling any real strong degree of empathy. He can feel sympathy, but it's hard for him to wrap his head around empathy a lot of the time. And he's a very kind, good guy, too. But I do think that the game is good for helping him with that, as he gets to "play" someone else and feel their emotions. And I think since he started playing in my games, about nine years ago, it's improved. He's also older, and that might help. I don't know.I just know that this type of emotional involvement in necessary, and that overloading meta mechanics can blunt it. Mind you, I use a couple different meta mechanics in my RPG, so I'm not philosophically against them. I think they can enhance what I've been talking about. But the emotion I want to bring out is much less based on an "artistic/aesthetic sense" and much more in the empathy sense I mentioned.Anyways, hopefully that's at least a little enlightening, if nothing else. I'm not trying to convince anyone to swap styles or anything. As always, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification